BioWare have announced their intent to redesign Anthem from the ground up.
The news comes via a BioWare news post by BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson, stating BioWare’s intent to focus “on a longer-term redesign of the experience,” including the core gameplay loop, progression, and rewards.
“Over the last year, the team has worked hard to improve stability, performance and general quality of life while delivering three seasons of new content and features. We have also heard your feedback that Anthem needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression and a more fulfilling end game. So we recognize that there’s still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience, and it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion. Over the coming months we will be focusing on a longer-term redesign of the experience, specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges and progression with meaningful rewards – while preserving the fun of flying and fighting in a vast science-fantasy setting. And to do that properly we’ll be doing something we’d like to have done more of the first time around – giving a focused team the time to test and iterate, focusing on gameplay first.”
Hudson also explains that the current version of Anthem will continue, though the development team will “move away” from full seasons. The game will still have events, store refreshes, and revisits to past seasonal and cataclysm content. This also includes the game’s anniversary at the end of February.
The announcement was most likely spurned by one Twitter user reporting that the Holiday themed decorations in Anthem were still up on February 7th. Many felt this meant the game had been almost abandoned by Bioware.
This could have been the final straw among many issues. While critics gave an average score from 50 to 60 according to Metacritic [1, 2, 3] user scores were around 3.5 to 4 out of 10. Critics and players major issued stemmed from the game feeling unfinished, aimless, uninspired, and with shallow and repetitive gameplay.
In our review, we found the game’s story convoluted, with long load times, lifeless dialogue, enemies being too feeble or outright bullet-sponges, and the world being empty. We did however, praise the environments, the flying mechanics, and the powers and abilities.
The game seemed to have a lukewarm reception to many. Ben Croshaw (a.k.a. Yahtzee) of Zero Punctuation “awarded” the game as the Blandest Game of 2019, due mainly to the fact he forgot the title even existed.
Anthem failed to reach Electronic Arts’ sales goals on launch, and was even beset with a bug that caused PlayStation 4’s to crash or even brick in March 2019 [1, 2].
Can Anthem rebuild itself? What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!
Anthem is currently available in its original form for Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In case you missed it, you can find our review for the game here.
